Rongorongo text X

A tangata manu statuette in excellent condition, 33 × 8 × 6.2 cm, of unknown wood.

Routledge says in her notes that a Rapanui elder told her that all the manu miro ('wood birds') were inscribed with glyphs.

Fischer accepts it as genuine and speculates 'Perhaps it was obtained on Rapanui in the first half of the nineteenth century by an American whaler.'

The glyphs were apparently etched with obsidian but then not finished with a shark tooth, and therefore several of them have been nearly rubbed out over time.

However, Fischer (1997) is of the opinion that the glyphs are of 'the highest classical style', and suggests the statuette may have been traded to a passing ship before the inscription was finished.